culture round up part 1

i've got a LOT of catching up to do - going all the way back to august!

the night of the performance, we rounded everyone up to go to the drive-in...we saw "funny people" - which was TERRIBLE. the best thing this film did for us was to give aziz ansari the opportunity to do the raaaaaaaandy shorts that turned up on funny or die.

i get what judd apatow was going for - he wanted to show the costs of being funny/being a professional comedian. it's like the insidious side of "inside the actor's studio" that you're always hankering for but that beard-o is too busy being all, "so tell me about that time you were awesome" to give. it was a self-reflective look at the misanthropic, self absorption of the mensch comedian. too bad it went too far and presented us with someone who was so convincing, you as the audience didn't care. it was off-putting. adam sandler wasn't endearing at all and way too believable as the neurotic schmuck. the movie is populated with unlikeables and what "funny" moments there were unfortunately just didn't cut the mustard. it was dreary and about 10 billion hours too long. FAIL! the only good part is seeing judd apatow's daughter maude, absolutely DESTROY "memory" from the musical "cats" in full cats garb. it was smashing.

we saw a lot of movies in hawaii because everyone in hawaii either a) goes to bed super-early or b) hated us and were off having post-9pm fun in a secrete locale unbeknownst to lagerfeld and the dotytron.

"inglourious basterds" was pure entertainment - great tarantino fun, without as much of the tarantino talky flourishes and trying-to-be-cool that can be a little off-putting. the performances are fantastic - christopher waltz's mannerisms and enunciation as the courtly nazi colonel were note-perfect as was the luminous performance of french actress mélanie laurent as jew-in-hiding shosanna. i liked that a lot of the violence happens off-camera - it didn't trade on gore - and there were so many deliciously tense moments. the movie time flew by and it's a film i would definitely recommend. not something that's particularly thought-provoking, but a well-crafted pastiche of movie tropes and fantasy.

i read an interview with tarantino where he talks about his impetus for making the film, that he thought surely, not all the jews meekly marched aboard the cattle car - that there must have been some violent resistance that the annals of film refuse to acknowledge because it doesn't fit into the conventional narrative we've constructed around the holocaust. i liked his point - especially as it helps to shake up the wwII film genre.

"district 9" i loved. loved loved loved. just a few shades below "children of men" in terms of dystopian, future-rooted thought experiments cloaked in film. talk about thought-provoking! we spent the entire night nattering away at each other about the movie. so subtle, so damning an indictment of apartheid! what a depiction of the ease with which "everymen" get swept by their own apathy, ignorance, and disciplinary cultural forces into colluding/constructing oppression of "the other." you hear that, "the reader"? this says everything, more elegantly and with greater nuance, that "the reader" in all its forced mannerisms and oscar-baiting wanted to say but failed miserably at conveying without the full force of a sledgehammer.

so graceful! so compact! one of the more exciting films i've seen in a long time. a perfect blend of action and ideas. subtle, cheeky...this was great.

"the time traveler's wife" was disappointing. it was okay (i mean, it made the dotytron cry) but it lacked a lot of the emotional punch of the book. it was pretty enough - but you weren't really invested in the central relationship to care - as a review i read said, the time traveling is really depicted more as an occasional inconvenience than anything else. this was very meh. i mean, it's the kind of meh, blandish, aimed-at-(imaginary)women duff that i would probably see anyway, on a lazy rainy saturday afternoon when i only have my own company to contend with. but this was a poorish example of that particular genre.

one night in a moment of weakness, after feasting on volcanoes all day, we rented "confessions of a shopaholic" from the local (only) convenience/pizza parlour/video store in the tiny village of volcano and staged a take over of the cable-bereft, under-used common room at our lodge. wouldn't you know that right when we're in the middle of what is perhaps the most potentially embarrassing rental choice to be seen with outside your own home, THAT'S when all the guests come clambering out of the woodwork to try to stake a claim on the common room, only to leave in haughty disgust at our viewing material??? this was really, really, REALLY bad. it doesn't even give you enough unintentionally funny moments to make fun of à la the infamous "jane austen bookclub" night with dr. rei. it's horrid.

okay, so that brings us up to speed. i'm done dragging up pop culture from 2 months (aka a lifetime) ago. on my list now is:

- "a serious man"
- "an education"
- "more than a game"
- "an education"
- "zombieland"

and a billion other things. but those are tops on my list, currently.

tonight we're playing dodgeball and then going to caplansky's (encore un fois!) with our buddy, L. i'm going to venture into the breakfast menu, methinks.

full review to come!

fin.

it's come to THIS?

last night before the roomie and l'army came over, we were doing some frantic, last-minute tidying...to the tune of satie's gymnopédie no.1 do you know what this means? we're ACTUALLY like, no better than edward cullen from "twilight," who wooed bella with debussy. it's sick! in case you thought this had anything to do with me, allow me to correct you - i came home last night singing the one line i know from miley cyrus' "party in the u.s.a." nuh-uh - this is all the dotytron (who, incidentally, hates that "twilight" sullied debussy's good name by using it as a cheap vampire panty-removing tactic). i will say that it gymnopédie no. 1 does make whatever it is you're doing, no matter how mundane or frenzied, take on a certain air of limpid languor. it makes dirty clothes-hiding and half-hearted sweeping much more civilized.

i went with dr. rei today to return the boots and hear more about her and hanbo's time away. we've decided that we basically need a week's worth of lunches to catch up. so our mission today was to bring the mersereau's back to aldo and hopefully get the motorcycle ones. except fate and dr. rei's keen eye intervened. when i put the mersereau's back on in the store, she said she liked them and the oddness of them comes not from the boot, but from the fact that i really don't wear boots with pointy (almond shaped) toes that are so feminine and girly. the motorcycle boot was playing it safe, but would be an unnecessary addition to my wardrobe. and that was that.

see why i needed her back?!? my warping mirror at home and the style-blinded eyes of the dotytron are no substitute for the sage advice of a bestie. especially a girlie bestie at that. i feel better, now. i also woke up this morning feeling like it's time for a hair change. i've been rocking the same hair for FOREVERS.

i think i want blunt bangs and layers by my face and i'm going to lose the side part and go with something either in the middle, or wherever it wants to be - i've been wearing my hair down the odd time and S does such a great job cutting it, that the grow-outs are fantastic. i think the blunt bangs would make wearing it down a little more fun - i'm thinking something along the lines of zooey deschanel:

i keep meaning to try the braid hairband but never get around to it. maybe this weekend. i want to lop some inches off but still have it kinda layered and a little textured to work with my natural wave - i have high hopes.

ugh...had the worst tussle with the TTC today. i effing hate them. any bleeding heart, leftist chickenhead liberal who tries to defend the blatant mismanagement of their frontline, customer service staff is completely blinded to the reality that ttc ticket takers, bus drivers, streetcar drivers, etc. break down into roughly this proportion: 10% amazing, pleasant, nice, lovely, considerate; 60% apathetic, middle of the road, disinterested; 30% AWFUL, stupid, ignorant people who kinda deserve to get spit on, sorry to say. i mean, no one DESERVES to get spat on, but some of those dudes are d**ks. the way a d***y cop can be a total d**k who invites a little civil and not-so-civil disobedience from the general populace. think about it this way, td bank records like, all of your phone calls to their staff and you still get crappy service about 15% of the time - what do you think is going to happen with the ttc peeps? it's like the wild west out there! do they even HAVE supervisors?

it's appalling. the indignities of public transportation in toronto shave years off your life, i'm convinced. our transfer system?!???!!!

it took me almost an hour and a half to get home. redonkulous. feeling a little down - reading harvey pekar and joyce brabner's "our cancer year" - totally depressing. hoping to sleep it off.

this trailer totally made me perk up, though:

it's quite dear. stop motion makes wes anderson's usual affectations much more palatable. and well, the clooney could sell you on most things.

the other thing that made me perk up was watching south park tonight and hearing cartman say, "oh, F**K OFF!" to a homeless guy asking for change. the comedy network keeps showing an ad where they have cartman farting over and over and it always makes me laugh and the dotytron turned to me the other night and said, "you're such a f**king cartman, sometimes." it's so true. i am a f**king cartman sometimes.

fin

p.s.

diaries of a hypochondriac

so the question on everyone's lips (or, facebook statuses) this season is: to get the h1n1 shot or not to get the h1n1 shot?

i think i've got a fairly good immune system. i don't like to advertise this fact, lest the fates strike me down for my impudence, but...i've never had the flu. the dotytron has and i've bathed in his virulent juices by sleeping in the same (double!) bed with him while he's been sick, and i've never gotten it. my secret is that come winter, i eat 2 grapefruits, 1 banana, and an apple almost every day. i also drink a glass of o.j. every day. and generally (popeye's chicken notwithstanding) eat healthy, home-cooked, veggie-present meals.

the last time i got really sick was when i had bronchitis like, 7 years ago. i was working at bymark then as the day hot apps person so i worked through the increasingly ragged cough for 3 weeks. then, by the time i went to the doctor, she said that my phlegm had changed back to normal so there was no point prescribing me penicillin as i was already on the mend. is my immune system basically a biological double for jesse ventura's character blain in "predator"? "i ain't go time to bleed" = "i ain't got time to get sick"???

the problem is: i'm a hypochondriac (no surprise for faithful readers - i'm a self-aware hypochondriac, at the very least). so while i'm usually fine with my decision to forgo the seasonal flu shot - this h1n1 stuff is scaring the crap outta me because i'm in a RISK group! it strikes healthy people! women more likely to die! HEALTHY WOMEN more likely to contract a more virulent case that will require more aggressive treatment! as i was joking to my male doppelganger, A, i need a hypochondriac vector on the WHO statistics, or a lens, or like an applet that i can run - a hypochondriac google translate was his suggestion. lol!

so i don't know quite yet what i'm going to do. i'm going to send the dotytron to get the seasonal one AND the h1n1 because he's around filthy, disgusting, grubby children all day and that's basically like spending your time simmering in the pus from scabrous boils(golly, do i have the maternal instinct or what?!)

i'm not really getting the hang of this whole, "cooking for 2" thing. we're swimming in leftovers. so i have to get over my innate aversion to eating things twice. this means that last night i ate leftover farfalle in the creamy squash sauce with herbs and tonight i'm planning on tucking into another round of creamed chicken stew with dill dumplings. truth be told, with leftovers like these, it's no hardship having a second go.

i had a talk with my film friend D about "where the wild things are" - he really didn't like it. he said that a) he hated the soundtrack (it's hilarious talking to him about it because he has no idea who karen o is) and talked about how he hated the keening, one voice vocals and how he doesn't know from pop music (the funny thing is, the dotytron had exactly the same opinion and he DOES know from pop music). he brought up some things i agreed with - how the pseudo-freudian notes were out of place in the film...and he talked about how his favorite image in the book is when max goes to bed without his supper, and the walls come crashing down and the ocean comes in - and how in the hands of a director like spike jonze, that would have been a lovely scene. instead what you get is a max running away in the night and a strange boat appearing out of nowhere. i think upon revisiting, i would say that's it's an unsuccessful children's film AND an unsuccessful adult film, with some funny moments.


last night we watched "anvil: the story of anvil" it's a documentary about this band, anvil, that reached it's zenith in the early 80s and served as a total inspiration for megadeath, anthrax, gun's'roses, etc but never achieved the same fame and then fell off the radar. the two principals, "lips" and robb reiner, have continued to put out record after record, playing to crowds of like, 40 in sudbury and the documentary follows their attempts to record their 13th album and make a last stab at success at the age of 50. it's really, really, great. so entertaining - it's like metallica's "some kind of monster" but like, good, because they're real people and not total wads like lars ulrich and you actually care about their process.

guys, can anyone BELIEVE how much of a wad lars ulrich is? every time i see that guy or hear him speak i want to spit in his mouth.

"anvil: the story of anvil" is really great - i highly recommend it. it made the dotytron cry because nothing gets to the dotytron more than talented, well-meaning musicians trying to eke out a living in this crazy world. also, it features a brief appearance by scott ian from anthrax, who i've always had a soft spot for because he KILLED an episode of rock'n'roll jeopardy i saw once. he was really smart! anyway, you become so invested in anvil's success (they're actually REALLY good if you like that kind of classic, shredding, super-fast metal sound) that we went upstairs to see how they're doing now. i think the film has developed a cult following so based on their website (talk about a throwback! check out that webpage!!!) and myspace, they're touring a fair bit and at decent-sized venues, too!

can everyone else feel the insistent tug of fall? the lull? the desire for cocooning, coziness, legs curled up and under a woolly afghan, sleeping in a pile, long-stewed, simmered, braised meats, root vegetables smelling like the earth? the golden light of hearth (i wish) and home winking out into the darkness? i love this season for mulled apple cider, and warm cookies, and sheepskin slippers, and flannels.

i'm almost dizzy with joy when i ride over the bloor viaduct and i see the don valley stretched out like a giant, undulating carpet of russet, tawny port, claret, and gold. i feel so alive and so present and so immediate in the last flush of sunlight before the dusk comes and casts long shadows over all.

it's getting harder and harder to come home and think of anything but settling down on the couch with a big bowl of warm foodstuffs resting on my belly and a pile of books to bury into. i'm letting more and more things slide until "tomorrow" - if ever.

we had the roomie and l'army over after dinner for some SYTYCD and cookies and talking - it was fun! they hadn't seen lil' ugmo since we had gotten ceilings - so it was a big revelation - they were suitably awed.

fin.

those who know, know

i kind of wish the world at large had the opportunity to enjoy the unique experience of going to costco with the dotytron. it's hilarious. "do you want to see those chocolate muffins i was talking about?" yes, yes i do! "this tea was obviously brewed using water that's too hot, you can taste the bitterness" *sampling from a styrofoam sample cup of tetley's green tea* lol!

so last night, our plans to meet up with high school peeps got derailed. lemme tells ya: gimme an old-fashioned tyrannical despotic regime anytime! trying to reach a decision based on consensus, through email, makes you want to tear your hair out. i had suggested the idea for a bi-monthly dining club - it was warmly received. but when it came time to decide where we were going to eat, all hell broke loose. there were last minute dietary restrictions, no one willing to come down and pull the trigger, it was too much! so in the end we bailed on the dinner plans and did our own thing, which turned out SPLENDIDLY!

incidentally, i think if you're going to do a dining club, participants just have to submit to the selector. like a book club. it's so and so's turn to pick, you read the book (even if it isn't to your taste) and then you get to pick based on your parameters when it's your turn. people all have to be on the same gastronomic page, too...if you have a raw vegan on board, it's going to be REALLY hard to find places month after month.

anyway, we ended up at caplansky's, in their new location. love it! bright, light, airy, with exposed brick walls and art deco hanging light fixtures i covet. there was a bit of a line-up at 7:30pm, but we got seated at the bar, promptly. the bartender was excellent - backing off when you didn't need him, materializing just when you did, chatty, warm, a real food hound (btw, he recommended hashimoto's to the TEETH. he said the chef will email you photos of what you've eaten so that the next time you come, you won't get the same thing twice - that the room was designed by the chef and that the chef attended the kaiseki institute in japan. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! way to make me blinded with lust to go, buddy. line of credit balance be damned!).

the menu has been expanded since the days at the monarch...there's a breakfast, lunch, AND dinner card. we collected ourselves, the dotytron ordered a fantastic draft beer purportedly made by a disgruntled ex-mill st. brewery employee, and then i rattled off our order in a staccato burst of ashkenazi gunfire: 1 kishka, 1 knish, 1 liver appetizer, 1 fatty sandwich combo with fries, 1 medium sandwich combo with the borscht (not beet based). at which point, the bartender paused from his frantic transcription, looked up, and cocked his eyebrow: "that's a lot of food"

inwardly, i bristled. i nodded, "yeah, we wanted to try the stuff we haven't had" and he nodded and went to input the order. the dotytron turned to me and said what i was thinking, "i take that as a challenge." ME TOO! i'm kind of like, don't you know who i am? i'm iron-stomach lagerfeld! i'm the girl who will eat 8 hot dogs in a single sitting and still be clamoring for more! who thinks nothing of a 3 piece fried chicken meal while waiting for my banquet burger to be done! please! well, the food came, it was across-the-board, delicious:

the borscht that came with the dotytron's combo meal (sandwich and choice of soup, salad, fries). again, it's a beef and cabbage based borscht, no beets. they used the smoked meat bits in making the stock - deliciously fragrant, soothing, warm with a hit of sourness...perfect for a biting fall day.

have i ever encountered a chopped liver i didn't want to order? no way! this little scoop was full of livery livery punch with the added bonus of little bits of unpuréed liver for texture. rich with the faint coppery taste that i associate with liver, it's served with rye ends (too many for the zeal with which i enthusiastically apply liver to carb) and red onion and some tomato.

kiskha! a nice snap from the skin encasing a flavourful, fluffy, mealy interior, browned and crisped on all sides and served with a ladle of smoked meat gravy. oh, my stomach is burbling just thinking about it the next day (seriously, i just had to swallow a mouthful of anticipatory saliva).

their knish is obviously sliced off a big slab, instead of the individualized portions i'm used to. we got the potato, with the smoked meat gravy (other options are smoked meat and they also have a vegetarian friendly mushroom gravy). sliced pavé of perfectly yielding, fluffy potatoes encased in a short, flaky pastry, redolent of onion - good god, i'm going to need a spit cup - i want to go back RIGHT NOW and eat more! DID I MENTION THAT THEY SERVE BREAKFAST!???!!!


finally our sammiches. is there another option other than fatty? if yes, i don't want to hear about it (the dotytron got a good-natured ribbing for opting for medium). hand-carved and delectable. unlike schwartz's, as your mouth hovers over the sandwich for that split second before your teeth meet yielding rye and layer upon layer of brisket, your nose and mouth pick up the unmistakable drift of smoke that's been impregnated into that meat. it's revelatory. fantastic. the smoke is so subtle that you can't really taste it, but your keen sense of smell knows it's there and that's what makes this sandwich. not the mustard - as i told the dotytron, "i never put mustard on my smoked meat sandwich" him: "really?" me: "yup, i bare-back it." neighbouring lone diner at the end of the bar, overhears, chokes on his sandwich and looks at me with admiring, awestruck eyes. lol!

the fries are the same...the way i like them, on the too-salty side of salty, some crispies, some limpies, all of them amenable to a good squirt of ketchup and a mawing by the forkful.

after polishing off EVERYTHING on our plates, we got daps from lone diner, whose admiration for me had only increased as he watched me pack away bite after bite, and an apology from the bartender, for thinking we couldn't do it. i wanted to say, guys, we've eaten in ROCHESTER, sons. we're (well, the dotytron is an honorary one by now) CHINESE, sons. you think you can throw something at me, portion wise, that can even test brian's u.s.a diner on a no-atkins day? or the cracker barrel when i'm being circumspect? puh-lease. come again. it wasn't even THAT much food. we finished our meal and i felt fine. nothing that would require a witching hour pepto shot, that's for damned sure.

so we ordered dessert.


cherry pie for the dotytron and lemon meringue for me. the bartender warned me that the lemon was a little watery and gave it to me for 1/2 price. sweet! what a great place! the crust was tough (to be expected) and my lemon meringue wasn't punchy enough, but they were decent. i'd call those a $3 slice of pie, not a cent more (i think desserts cost a bit more).

anyway, for all that food, we spent $60, including tax and tip. a pretty solid deal if you ask me.

we saw the movie in the beaches cinema. well, well, well, aren't YOU a civilized movie going experience? $9 for non members, no crowds, no screaming kids and blaring arcade. loved it. overall, i enjoyed this film - i think like all the reviews have been saying, it captures the tumultuous confusion and capricious emotions of childhood. i love catherine keener and mark ruffalo - would watch them in just about anything (and in the case of a 10 minute, "13 going on 30" interlude whilst channel surfing last weekend, i mean it when i say, "just about anything") didn't love the soundtrack - although karen o's keening does kind of match the mood of the film. the wild things were a revelation - the confluence of ace voice casting and the CGI'd expressions resulted in a rich, emotionally gratifying performances from the fuzzy suits.

i loved the interaction of the wild things with each other and the way they stood in for recognizable (western) family dynamics. however, i thought the movie was a trifle long - the time that max spends with the wild things, is a little too thin on plot and character development to justify how long jonze lingers. i would have liked to see MORE during max's self-imposed exile. more exploration into the wild things' characters - less of a too-easily digestible mirror for his interactions in the human world with his family. overall, it was quite good...i'm not sure that i'd recommend it. i loved lauren ambrose as k.w. - there are some lovely, funny moments.

this morning for breakfast i attempted (in my own way) to atone for the supper time excesses of friday and saturday night with some whole wheat and oat scones (the same recipe i've posted before, subbing whole wheat flour for the white, and turbinado sugar for the white sugar). we had these with devonshire cream and strawberry fig jam.

then was the aforementioned costco trip that inspired the title of this post. we were almost paralyzed by our inability to choose the right candy/chocolate/brand mix for our halloween grab-bucket. but we soldiered on and then headed to the garden store to grab my canvases for carving.


tonight for dinner i made us a proper fall/winter sunday supper - the kind that sunlit, nippy, kaleidoscope-leaf days like these cry out for. creamed chicken stew with cornmeal dill dumplings. i contemplated throwing everything into the slow-cooker but that would have been a mistake - we don't like it when there's little nubs of chicken bones that you have to contend with in an otherwise luxuriant, silken bowl. so i par-cooked the chicken, at a low simmer (thighs and drumsticks) then let the chicken cool, removed the skin and deboned them. i used the chicken poaching liquid as my chicken stock. we have leeks in there, and carrots, celery, thyme, sage, parsley, rosemary, mushrooms, peas, and a sweet potato, cubed small in a slightly thickened, cream-infused liquid...all topped with dill-flecked, winking dumplings. nom nom nom.

dessert was a sour cream apple tart from altitude with vanilla ice cream. the dotytron has been feeling the onset of sickness (he's ALWAYS convincing himself that he feels a cold a coming on) but i'm banking on the restorative powers stewed veggies and chicken, prepared with love.

i'll let you know how it does.

fin.

busy busy busy

guys, halloween is SO SOON! and we have AMAZING costumes this year! mine has the following going for it: comfort, funny, dashing. the dotytron's has this: historically relevant, a wig, a women's sized MEDIUM coat. lol!

what have i been up to the last few days, eh? well, on thursday night my mum and big d took us out to big mouth kee for dinner along with some of their friends who gave us wedding presents (cash) that my parents promptly stole. lol! i think that's how it works in chinese culture. basically, you're always giving money back to your parents for having birthed/raised you. when i was a kid and i asked my mum what i was getting for my birthday, she'd inevitably reply, "ummm...what are YOU getting for ME?" chinese people in general don't really do birthday prezzies (or maybe it's just my fam?) that's not cash, which made the grade-school post-birthday debrief of, "sooo...what'd you get for your birthday?" kind of squirm-inducing. what was i supposed to reply? "uh, i got the gift of being born 8 years ago"?

anyway, big mouth kee is kind of dingy on the inside. i think i've mentioned before that it's rigged up to look like hong kong circa the 1920s or something. big d is a HUGE big mouth kee champion but i've never seen it before - but that meal on thursday was INSANE! INSANE! we had:
1) roast suckling pig - one of the best iterations of that dish evers! the perfect balance between the crispy skin, a sliver of pork fat and a sliver of tender pork - just enough to support the weight of the bristling skin
2) sea cucumber (which i usually hate) - stuffed with shrimp paste and served with perfectly cooked broccoli
3) shark's fin soup but in a rich, crab bisque reminiscent broth
4) these little nests made out of thin, rice noodle threads that had been deep fried to shattering delicacy, holding asparagus and scallops
5) the veggie dish was mushrooms (maitake, i think) and shanghai choy
6) braised duck with shitakes and more veggies
7) a GIANT like, 8 lb lobster that had been hacked apart and deep fried and showered with crispy bits which was browned garlic and the tomalley
8) a "high class" steamed fish (i guess even fish aren't exempt from hong kong chinese people's obsession with class consciousness)
9) fried rice
10) dessert #1 was silken tofu in a ginger syrup
11) dessert #2 was deep fried, black sesame paste stuffed glutinous rice balls
12) dessert #3 was steamed asian pears in a sweet syrup with gingko and nuts

bliss of blisses! the dotytron was enthralled! i was stuffed to the gills! and what a fitting and decadent way to end off my short work week.

yesterday was my day off. i celebrated by:
a) showing up 3 hours early to my massage, thereby scaring the beejezus out of my lovely rmt, not to mention waking earlier than i had to
b) doing all of next week's grocery shopping, which meant wrecking my back by carrying about 40lbs of groceries on my bike in the sleet and rain
c) going to the dentist and getting a cleaning
d) then showing up LATE to my scheduled massage, thereby cheating myself out of my rmt's restorative ministrations
e) coming home ravenous and eating 2 cupcakes (1 was for the dotytron) and 4 pepperoni sticks (2 were for the dotytron)
f) crafting my heart out.
g) hosting s-dawg for some low key hangs and popeye's fried chicken
h) having gut rot and then being a giant buzzkill

the plus is: i got all the stuff i needed for the dotytron's costume. and i made my halloween bunting.

this is what lil' ugmo's dressing up as for halloween:





pretty cute, huh? the bunting turned out really sweet. i used my new favorite font: cooper black. i'm really obsessed with 70s style fonts lately (bodoni, cooper black, etc.) i didn't do a very good job sewing the cut-out letters so the edges might fray away to nothing - we'll see! it would have been easier to use a font that had all right angles - but this looks so nice! don't you think?

i cut out the pumpkins using this tutorial as my guide/inspiration and put them up in the windows of our enclosed porch. then i cut out some leaves from some random wrapping paper i had around and placed them around the pumpkin heads. they turned out really well! i'm also supposed to make the grave stones today...finished project pics will be posted accordingly. and tomorrow i'm going to pick out my pumpkins and those will add the finishing touches (plus "monster mash" playing on repeat) to lil' ugmo's first halloween.

i'm also supposed to start/finish my costume today. then i will call it a day. and by "calling it a day" i mean: "sit on the couch and organize all my photos into albums or if i don't feel like doing that, knitting and reading all the comics i ordered from the library"

tonight we're purportedly meeting with some high school crew for dinnie at caplansky's. i had previously reviewed them in their former incarnation at the monarch. now they've added kishka and knish and all sorts of other jewish deli staples that i'm itching to try. the smoked meat was always good as were the fries. the sides tended to be lacking. my sis ordered matzoh ball soup there and it was TERRIBLE. tasted like dirty dish water. i'm going back in their new, self-standing location so i can know whether to close the book on the place or not.

we're hoping to follow that up with some "where the wild things are" action.

okay...costumes don't make themselves!

fin.

p.s. in case the neighbours didn't hate us already, the monday after the move, on my first real day to start tackling lil' ugmo, i made it my first priority to do this:

yep, i spray-painted "fire walk with me" in red stencil letters on our garbage, green, and recycling bin (i also put the address on the other side).

my dentist's office

just asked me to do them a solid and change my appointment to tomorrow instead of friday. well, they didn't say, "could you do me a solid" but they asked if i would like to come in tomorrow as it would "really help them out." ummmm...excuse me?!? what the heck? since when is it MY job to help YOU out? the only thing to recommend this place is that they're really close to my home and new - otherwise, they provide very perfunctory service and try to bilk insurers. i don't understand when the switch from a cleaning turned into "units" of cleaning but that's balls. it just gives people an excuse to charge more when they don't get the job done in the time allotted. bunk, i say!

so, speaking of style (yesterday's entry)...i recently bought myself a pair of riding boots from aldo. these ones:

in black. it was high time for me to have a pair of lady boots for the office and for tramping around in the fall. i wanted something to give me a bit more coverage when i drop the short skirts and tights look at work. but i keep wearing them around the house and trying them with different outfits and it's just not working. i think i'm too short, they make me look stumpy and a little too junior-ss on the bottom. i don't have the long legs to make the proportion right between the bottoms of my coats/skirts and the top of the boot.

i might exchange them for these ones instead. the mersereau, in black. it's a little lower...like a high mid-calf, with a fashion-forward almond shaped toe (that's what the aldo website says) and a little bit of the riding details to still make it sharp and work appropriate.

at the end of the day, though...the ones that really look the best on me are brendal:
mid calf, a little chunky, more like a motorcycle boot. i'd buy these in an instant if they would work at work, but they won't. i really like the juxtaposition of that kind of early 90s thing of a really feminine look up top and a heavy boot on the bottom. it's pretty flattering on me, especially with my trend towards the slim-fitting skirts/sweaters and slightly mod thing. also, my lower leg is quite shapely, if i do say so myself, and it cuts it off at the right point. we shall see!

rodarte is the newest label to make a lower-priced line for target. it was announced in august and they're hitting the target floors in december...for the most part, i'm not feeling it. lots of skeletons and punky, sid'n'nancy looking flouncy skirts and leopard print jackets...the mustard yellow, sheer long cardigan is the only thing i like:

totally want to get me one of those. i'm obsessed with mustard yellow at the moment. i'm knitting myself a really long cowl in mustard yellow that i can wear as a big giant loop OR i'll be able to double up and use as a super-chunky scarf. it's slow going at the moment...my fingies aren't used to the knittings.

in other sartorial news, the dotytron and i have made the deeply considered and heartbreaking decision to part ways on our halloween costumes this year. we're not going as something related. well, i guess we'll be tangentially related in the sense that both of our characters are imbued with dignity and panache, but that's about it. just wanted to prepare all y'alls.

so i totally had a minor panic attack yesterday when i realized that xmas is SO CLOSE and that we're PRACTICALLY in november and FALL BACK (yay!) is here already!!! my heart started pounding. now that i don't have a giant freezer, where am i going to store my pre-formed xmas cookie balls for the xmas cookie tin?!? (i'm hoping momma d will let me time-share her cube freezer). and what am i actually going to put in this year's xmas cookie tin?!? and will i have my shopping done by the end of november?!? and what can i get people on my list for negative monies?!? also, there's a heap of bdays in there...the dotytron's 30th is coming up, and our 8 year anniversaire (i'm steadfastedly sticking to the iriginal anniversary date - the one where we met - and ignoring the performance one; i'm not celebrating TWO anniversaires a year - well, maybe i will someday, but certainly not in TODAY'S economy - and realistically, the one where we re-met is more important than the one where we made it official, imho, tbh, ftr).

i'm kind of heart set on getting a kaiseki meal at hashimoto...i've been wanting to go since i heard about this place two years ago...but it's $200 a person and he's kind of fascist about not letting in ANY photographic device. plus it's only 8 courses. i'm predicting you definitely come out hungry but that each dish will be a perfect little tableau of delicacy. the chef is opening up a location in the don mills area, supposedly this month. no word on that yet. p.s. totally look at the pictures scrolling by on the top - if that doesn't scream "big mac combo and filet-o-fish chaser" to you, i don't know what does.

boo to chupid lil' ugmo. i can't believe i have to say fare thee well, love to dining out and fancy pants dinners because of my chupid mortgage for jerks. boo, i say, boo! although...there's always oyster boy (strangely, nothing screams winter to me like slurping down icy cold oysters by the dozen with the dotytron and a craft beer in the warm yellow light of that place)...and the harbord room, and tati bistro, and loire, and foxley, and...okay, the list of nice restaurants that aren't necessarily wallet-busters is endless. fine. i'm being a spoiled snot again. this is weird, but i'm totally craving north 44/bymark food lately. i don't know what it is...probably the fall hitting me - the idea of being wrapped in the luxuriousness of generous slops of foie and truffle oil and cheese and butter seem where it's at right now.


tonight we're supposed to be having the knitting club over for so you think you can dance and showing them the new digs and vegan foods. two of them have been felled by swine flu so it looks like it's going to be the usual musketeers, H, that guy and sweet baby D. i made the irie pumpkin stew and i'm making coconut rice'n'peas and tapioca pudding...although i think H is bringing vegan cupcakes so i might scratch the pudding as being a superfluous dessert (i know, i don't really believe in such a thing, either).

that guy made some delicious pumpkin chocolate chip vegan cupcakes. and sweet baby D ended up being a total goofball. i ended up scrapping the tapioca pudding and i made that radicchio and fennel salad. i tend to like to make something fresh if you're eating something stewy to cut the mellow, warm, dark flavours. i think i also made that guy a fennel convert!

fin.

profuse apologies

i've been sounding like a jerk lately and yesterday in particular.

i shouldn't harp on neutral paint colours. they're great. if that's what you're into, they really are. and i know next to nothing about design in any formal capacity. i just know what i like, what colours and arrangements and lines and textures i feel go together. what little vignettes i like to set up, what proportions i like to play with.

i just really really really dislike when people who don't know where i'm coming from, try to tell me to do something different. i know what my faults are (i'm a terrible driver, i'm bossy, i get mad to quickly, i don't shower as frequently as other people [in my defense, it's because my skin dries out something terrible]), i'm way too okay with dutch ovens [the practice, not the cooking vessel]) but i also know my strengths. and one of my strengths is dressing well and having an eye for general aesthetics. knowing what i should wear, what would look good on other people, how to put things together, finding the odd little touch that will pull things together, juxtaposing elements - these are all things i'm extremely good at.

so neighbs, just back off a little. i'll go about my merry little way and you can go about yours and when your little yard gets all verdant in the summer, i'll smile and compliment you the same way you can compliment me when my yard explodes in a riot of colour. truce?

there, i feel better for having unburdened myself. i didn't mean to sound like a holier-than-thou f**khead. i mean, i do think i'm better than a lot of people, but i know that there are some peeps that are better than me at other things (like, buckethead, nuno bettencourt, uhhhhh...colonel sanders?)

in general, peeps can do what they want, as long as they don't tell ME what to do.


tonight for dinner i made us a lovely fall dish. too bad it warmed up like crazy. we had smoked garlic pork sausages braised in beer with sauerkraut and apples. i served it over sweet potatoes and yukon golds that i boiled and mashed with their skins with sour cream, buttermilk, and dill.


i also made 2 pillowcases for the pillows for the couch with this spritely yellow sparrow flocked fabric. cute, eh?

fin.

gotta cool it...

the story of our old contractor is that he did all this work, fairly cheap. when we asked him to do additional work fixing our closets and installing shelving in there, he quoted us a price of $600, JUST to put in a rod and shelf...not to repair the plaster walls, no priming, no painting. so we were like, wtf? so i send him an email asking him what could POSSIBLY cost $600 - the materials? the labour? the email was also to say that his guys (we call them the jabberwockies because they'r a crew of youngish, ex-old skool hip hoppers who are all asian) thrashed our new ladder we bought and also ran late etc...so we were wondering if we could get some adjustments. then he calls back and makes me feel like poo for "nickel and diming" him when he did all this extra work for free (ie. the price didn't change even though we ended up picking shorter baseboard than what we originally had, so there had to be a lot of plaster work done, the baseboard was 120 ft. instead of 100, blah blah blah" so i'm like, dude, TELL ME WHEN YOU DO THIS STUFF. i was like, i'm not nickel and diming you, but in the future, it's helpful for me to know this stuff, so that when we're settling up, and i see stuff that wasn't done, i know what i'm walking into. and he's all "well, when we're doing it it's not a big deal, we're already there, but when you start nickel and diming..." i was like, a) i didn't ask you to do that stuff and b) i WANT TO PAY YOU FOR THE WORK THAT YOU DID. so we ended up just settling up and i was like, next time, tell me exactly what you're doing so that i'm not caught not knowing that you did extra work and then you calling me on it way late in the game when i'm trying to get you to pay me for that ladder you trashed.

as a chinese person, dealing with another chinese person, i wasn't into being accused of nickel and diming (which, btw, is a confucius-given chinese RIGHT) when i asked what i was getting for my $600. THAT'S when you tell me all the stuff you threw in? get outta here. i do want to maintain a positive relationship with this guy and the jabberwockies because they're cheap and do decent work.

we ended up going with this other guy for our closets - he's done everyone on our street - you name it, he's done it. the street is basically keeping him in business. he charged us $800 but it included fixing the walls, re-taping the drywall and priming. he's also cleaner than the other guy (ie. he constructed this elaborate cardboard protective barrier for our shoes so they wouldn't get all dusty where he was working).

so that was that. during my week off, the old owner had the temerity to come back to the house. did i tell you guys that on labour day weeken, after the house had been good and ours for over 4 days (keys in hand, title transferred) we came by at 10pm on sunday evening to show our friends the place and the old owner was there putting stuff in the trunk of his rav4? yeah! so i went up to him and he kind of jumped and started and spun around a bit, not knowing whether to close his trunk or not...and then i said (in broken cantonese): "ummm, what are you doing?" and he said he had forgotten to get stuff, and was all like, "do you want me to show you what i took?" and i said yes, and he opened up his trunk and it was a few rusty pipes that he used to hang his laundry on (don't ask). i was too shell-shocked to say, don't ever come back here again, which was stupid.

so the week off, old owner's brother came by (he looks exactly the same, they both owned the place). i happened to be cleaning the windows in the master bedroom, so i saw him start down the driveway and then i shouted, "HEY! YOU CANNOT BE HERE" (i was clearly more prepared this time). and he said he was just looking for mail and then i basically screamed (in chinese no more fixed than my last encounter with these knobs) "IF YOU EVER COME BACK HERE I AM CALLING THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY. YOU CANNOT BE HERE. YOUR STUPID BROTHER CAME HERE AFTER HOUSE MINE AND TAKE STUFF" and he was like, "well, he wasn't stealing, he didn't move it all." and i was like (picture me, almost getting a nosebleed with my attempts to make sense in my second language): "I CARE NOT. YOU TELL HIM HE COME BACK HERE I CALL POLICE RIGHT AWAY! BOTH OF YOU NEVER COME BACK AGAIN!" then he said i had to calm down and he was only looking for letters and then i had to explain "return to sender" which almost gave me a migraine.

i think i scared him off. what freaks.

on friday night i made us paninis on focaccia. they had: grilled zucchini, grilled eggplant, roasted pepper, sliced onion, provolone, and a fried egg. they were really, really good.

saturday i was hauling the aforementioned sod from off my yard and painting and otherwise working my way through my precious free time. we had my brother over for dinner and i made tagliatelle with wilted radicchio, bagna cauda, and a fried egg with a spinach salad with out-of-season strawberries (sorry, locavores!), toasted almonds, sunflower seeds, and a red wine vinaigrette.

sunday my mum came over to visit the place (her first time) and have brunch with us. we went to okayokay on queen east. this was the site of the famous, "how about your real name" incident. we walked in and we saw there were seats at the bar, with a booth about to be vacated. the same gruff waitress said, "you can have a seat at the bar," and i said, "no thanks, i think we'll wait for that booth" and she looked me right in the eye and said, super stern, "the thing is: i'll seat you at a booth, but i won't seat you at a dirty table, OKAY?" and cocked her head all b***hface on the "okay" part. i was like, so ready to walk out of the place. what the hell kind of service is that? and the food was BEYOND meh. it was actually pretty weak. $10.99 for a "breafkast burrito" consisting of a few scrambled eggs mixed with jack cheese, stuffed in a tortilla, topped with a tablespoon each of oxidized (brown) guacamole, salsa, sour cream? $10.99 for eggs benny served with NO homefries and with a fried macdonald's hashbrown instead of the english muffin? come on. they're banhammered FOR LIFE. we also left a crappy tip, which i usually NEVER do, but i'm not contributing to this culture of entitlement by dropping 20% in a glorified diner on crappy service. i'd rather give it to the clerk at walgreen's next time i'm in the states, who always (regardless of city!) calls me "hon."

then we drove around and did more errands. we went to crate & barrel and bought our dining room table. we got the basque in honey that i pictured before - the 82"

it'll be ready in mid-november. A&J got the same one!!! i'm going for a wood-white-industrial look so i want to get 2 galvanized french bistro chairs, like these, for the head and end of the table (the dotytron wouldn't let me buy the C&B ones cuz he said they're too expensive):


i'll have to wait though...see what turns up antiquing and craigslisting...and then i'll just get these ikea bent plywood ones for the rest of the seating:

i'm not waiting around for an eames or whatever...that's ludicrous. these are rated highly and will do the trick nicely. spending a lot of money for bent plywood is the height of stupidity...i'm not THAT wedded to mid-century modern, thanks.

edit - i'm having second thoughts about the table. i can get a vintage walnut (veneer) one with slim lines and slim legs from the 60s or 70s for $299 - the one i saw online even had TWO leaves! i have time to change my mind, though. PROS: if i get the cheaper table, i can get my galvanized chairs, which are harder to find, vintage. dining room tables are a dime a dozen.

last night for dinner i made us seared salmon with ultra-crispy skin, sweet potato and yukon latkes with sour cream and applesauce and broccoli in a spicy-soy sauce. so tasty! i also celebrated my new oven racks with new york times chocolate chip cookies - we ate a tonne of them while my s-dawg was over. he introduced us to this new game - the world of munchkin. it's kind of like d'n'd with a lot less rules. it's fun! it won best game of the year recently.

we also went down to this kick-ass movie rental place, the film buff which sells scoops of ice cream AND is the kind of movie place where they organize the titles by director and country. love it! we rented "all the president's men" - we didn't finish cuz we were pooped and went to bed at 10pm but it's SO GOOD! i'll post a review when we finish.

tonight for dinner we had short pasta in a creamy squash (b-nut) sauce with roasted garlic and herbs (fried sage and fresh chopped parsley). it was really tasty and really easy to do. i'll post a recipe at a later date.

fin.

my best friend's wedding

was the best. the best possible big wedding ever. dr. rei's dad is the cutest, most gracious, most gentlemanly little man ever. her mom was a bombshell. i was so honoured to witness her and hanbo's union - especially since i'd like to consider myself instrumental in their relationship, in my own words, "i facilitated the s**t out of the two of you." lol!

i was sweating the whole night getting ready to make my speech. for some reason, i kind of thought i would go first. then the best man speaks. then hanbo's parents speak. then dr. rei's parents speak and REDUCE EVERYONE TO A PILE OF TEARS AND SNOT. seriously...the most touching speech you've ever heard in YOUR LIFE. YOUR. LIFE. guess who's supposed to go after that? yours truly. i felt sick to my stomach. thankfully the mc's let the crowd get their shiz together and collect themselves, because as the male mc said, "that was goddamned touching." lol! it was! not a dry eye in the place.

i have to admit though...despite my second thoughts, my speech was pretty good. i try to hit all the notes - a little humour, a little sentimentality, a little nostalgia, don't tell stories too embarrassing, don't talk about stuff that's so personal it won't mean anything to the crowd...that tends to be my recipe. i brought the house down at my sis' wedding. tears help, too. people eat that shiz up. lol! luckily it's not hard for me to dissolve into tears. i'm a marshmallow, chinese veronica mars, a twinkie.

her dj killed it. he played all our favorites: journey, kansas, rick ross, wu-tang, toto's africa, which i sang aloud to at the top of my lungs. the best line in song in all of human history is: "I know that I must do whats right/
Sure as kilimanjaro rises like olympus above the serengeti" the way he makes "serengeti" fit the cadence and rhythm is a thing of beauty. we closed the place down dancing and eating cake and only left when they turned the ugly lights on us.

what a fun, fun time. i love knowing that the chapter of M-R-I has closed with all the endlessly funny stories and memories the three of us share together, but as that era has ended, a new era has begun of M-R-I-H, and of course, the goosetang clan/hamcamp klik.

dr. rei is my dearest heart. i get teary just thinking of all the countless hours we've spent on my old couch, big brown, in whatever dimly lit iteration of my living room we were in, talking through the night. all the times we've gone after a too-brief meeting, "AHHHH!!! WE HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO SAY!!!!" upon parting, all the times the dotytron has shook his head at us in acknowledgement of our combined lunacy, all the times the three of us embarked on some hair-brained adventure that inevitably resulted in us being doubled over in laughter, until our sides hurt. all the nicknames we've come up for for people, all the vagaries of the toronto jungle scene we've lived through, all the messageboard scandals, all the times shopping for vintage, all the times we've traipsed through a store/ridden the ttc/walked down the street and our animated, wackadoo conversation has invited comment from a total stranger, all the times we've entertained strangers with our throwaway comments. and...so many more times to come! i can't wait to see how we're going to grow together, what we're going to be like as parents (or not), how our lives are going to continually settle and shift and change with each other.

how can i capture 10 years of friendship in words? how do i capture 10 years of memories in words? how do i do our kinship justice? how do i convey my gratitude to the fates that we were brought together?

it always comes down to this. i am so lucky. so very, very, very lucky. and each moment that i waste on earth not fully aware of how lucky i am to have people like dr. rei with me through our all-to-brief passage on this mortal coil - is a foolish moment wasted.

my heart is full to bursting -



fin.

bonjour! it's me! did you miss me?

inquiring minds and raging egomaniacs want to know!

i know - you want to see lil' ugmo. BADLY. i want to show it to you. BADLY. but the perfectionist in me is protesting until the haus that love built is done. which means somehow getting down to the states to haul up the stuff i've gotten sent to my incredibly accommodating and forgiving sister and outlaw bro's house. this seems to be impossible. each time we try to get down there or try to get someone to come back up - something happens. i want lil' ugmo to look all pretty and polished before i give the photographic house tour. so you'll have to bear with me while i go about my usual banal business. in other words, blog posts will feature my musings on: stuff i hate, strange situations i've found myself in, encounters with the arcane, movie reviews, book reviews, and excitement of excitements, a restaurant review of a NEW FRIED CHICKEN PLACE.

i'm not going to blow my load right now, but i'll give you a teaser. the large gravy there IS A BUCKET OF GRAVY. seriously dudes. like, 2 cups of the most unctuous, golden, sunny, blessed by chicken fat gravy you've ever seen!

on to other things: like how much your collective lives (all 10 of you) have been a shadow of their former glory in my absence. how can you love me if i don't go away? tbh (to be honest) (aka the doytron's new favorite contraction) we didn't have access to the interwebs for a while (an excruciating 4 days). it kills us to be cut off from the interwebs. to the point where we got seriously b****y when our neighbour we like, after we had mentioned our separation from the nurturing teat that is the information superhighway, forgot and asked if we had seen our street on google street view. "THANKS A LOT, NEIGHBOUR," we hissed, "THANKS FOR RUBBING IT IN." lol! there was stuff going on on GOOGLE! and we were MISSING IT! we basically took turns tag-teaming our internet service provider and leaving increasingly desperate and forlorn messages until it got hooked up.

but then, injustices of injustices, it was ONLY HOOKED UP ON THE DOTYTRON'S COMPUTER. hopefully by the time i get home tonight, i'll be good to go. let's try and put this unpleasant time behind us.


okay! let's do some catching up shall we? i'll start with the easy bits. the food. this is the first meal i cooked at lil' ugmo (october 5th - pasta with spinach, chickpeas, chorizo). i'm telling you, i love my takeout as much as the next iron-stomached lagerfeld, but one gets damned tired of eating takeout and fast food. to the point where my body was CRAVING a home cooked meal. i was so dulled by the fast food grease, meat, salt, and starch assault on my tastebuds that picking where to get takeout (usually the most titillating and buzzy of exercises) became an exercise in apathetic drudgery.

october 6th, braised boneless lamb leg with anchovies, rosemary, lemon zest, on top of whole wheat couscous, and butter and ginger-pear jam glazed carrots.


my oven came with ZERO racks, thereby rendering it unpossible to do any baking/dessert making/oven using (it's electric, so you can't even jerry-rig something together) - since we'd been deprived the succor of dessert for so long, i made a stove-top one. the ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE PUDDING (i'll post the recipe next time). so good! we let the pudding skin form because this pudding is so devilishly rich and deep and dark.

october 7th. this is a toasted sub sandwich, my attempt at an aunt cookies, pressed in a panini pan, an attempt to put something palatable together with only 2 slices of capicollo and 2 slices of mortadella between us. it ended up being really good! especially after the panini kiss. mayonnaise is a miracle spread. so we had mayo, sliced tomato, sliced onion, shredded lettuce, 2 slices of cold cuts each and provolone all meltimified.

friday for dinner we had the rehearsal dinner for SOMEONE'S (my bffffff's) wedding. we ate at this restaurant in hamilton called la luna. it's lebanese food. this ain't your yonge and dundas schwarma, folks. so much food! the best hummous, kebabs, whatnot i've ever had! dr. rei says it's the best fattoush ever, but i disagree. to me, a fattoush is a mostly bread (pita) salad à la panzanella. with some other stuff to moisten (tomatoes, etc.) this fattoush was a mostly lettuce salad with some pita chip croutons. tasty, but not the typical. it was delicious. i'll save the story of the big nuptials for another day.



this is the new chicken restaurant we discovered in our neighbourhood - chick'n'joy. look at that grub!!! just look at it!!!!! we got the dinner for 2: 9 pieces of chicken (mixed), battered in a batter reminiscent of the colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices. it wasn't the crunchy crust of popeye's or the colonel's extra tasty crispy recipe. this featured instead juicy chicken wrapped in a seasoned thin coating that clung to the skin. you had to maw the skin a bit, it didn't shatter beneath the pressure of your teeth. very, very good. the deal comes with the salad of your choosing (choices are: potato, mac, coleslaw, and bean). we got the mac salad, which again, was like a slightly gussied up kfc's - macaroni cooked into utter submission, mixed with mayo and sweet relish, topped with paprika, as comforting and familiar as any picnic of my youth. you get a whole box of fries, with lots and lots of those over-fried, "crispy bits" i love, the ones that reside and cling stubbornly to the fryer basket through a few dunks in oil until a sharp jerk and tap against the fryer edge sends them tumbling into your (lucky) meal. they made a perfect foil for the aforementioned VAT of gravy - so good!

sunday was the wedding (details to follow)

monday was thanksgiving at the oulaw parents' house. it was a small group - just immediate family - it was nice. we were exhausted from being up too late the night before and putting together the semi-finishing touches on lil' ugmo and slumped there in our pajamas, yammed some food, did our laundry (1st year university, holla!) and hit the sack.

on tuesday i made that spicy beef and kimchi udon for our friend S who came to visit, the first visitor who's seen lil' ugmo in its' most finished, fit for company, state. i didn't take a pic because i left the camera at the outlaw's.

the chick'n'joy gravy made an appearance on our wednesday, october 14th meal. i was craving a hot turkey sandwich with a power that no man could tear asunder. so we cobbled together leftovers from mommma d's thanksgiving dinner - stuffing on the whole wheat ace bakery sliced bread, topped with turkey, a slop of gravy and served with hot, buttered, peas. oh my heavens. i love an open-faced hot turkey sandwich like whoa. i like any and all iterations of diner food and hope that the true diners still remaining are kept alive by reverential devotees like myself.


last night was dodgeball aka takeout night. so we went to the detroit eatery on the danforth - another classic, divey, diner. we each had banquet burgers, mine with fries'n'gravy, and the dotytron's with o-rings. that burger was real meat, my friends. a little lacking in salt, no mayo, and no lettuce. but boy was it EXACTLY what we wanted. we briefly considered burger shop quality meats as an option and then ix-nayed in favour of this place. so good! AND they get diner cred for having liver'n'onions AND hot turkey sandwiches on the menu. see that glob of rapidly congealing gravy on that there plate? see how it's a brown that doesn't exist in nature? that gravy is from a powder and that is EXACTLY what you want (but you want the turkey to be roasted). it's an internal contradiction.

i'm going to take you chronologically through THE MOVE so that you can see how the miracle of the monday-after-the-move meal above (the spinach, chorizo and chickpea pasta), prepared on the monday after THE MOVE, was able to be.

the move - prologue
picture me, deciding that we would do an hour of packing each day, whilst working full time, whilst shacked up with an over-worked and over-whelmed first time teacher, whilst slanging stuff on craigslist and trying to sort out the insanity of life, whilst making a million trips to home depot, the house, ikea, canadian tire; slowly letting the proscribed hour whittle down to a half hour of packing each day, to a minute each day, to a passing thought that we should be packing each day.

my enabler? the dotytron, of course. "dude, we've got a s**tf**k load of work to do," i'd say, in my stronger moments. "no way! we're doing pretty good" he'd tell me, the picture of laid back cool.

then, suddenly, the night before the big move is upon us. my brother comes over, making good on his previous offer to help us do carloads. he takes one look at the place, and says: "YOU CALL THIS BEING PACKED!" and instantly project manages the situation: "look, you're over-packing stuff in awkward boxes. i'll take carloads, and you pack and then unpack at the house while we bring you more carloads."

allow me to insert that my brother, s-dawg is AWESOME. he's a natural leader. he maintains calm, knows exactly what has to be done, and can tell people to do it in a way that i can manage in my professional life, but in my personal life quickly devolves into what you're going to see here.

s-dawg left with the first carload and as soon as he was out the door, i called the dotytron on his cell phone and left a message that was equal parts hysterical tears and equal parts me shouting into the receiver: "DUDE. WE ARE SO F**KED. WE ARE SO F**KED. WE'VE GOT NOTHING PACKED. NOTHING! WE'RE MOVING TOMORROW. TOMORROW!!! WE ARE SO F**KED. GET HOME RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. IS IT FAIR THAT I'VE PACKED UP THIS WHOLE HOUSE BY MYSELF? GET HOME NOW! YOU'VE DONE NOTHINGGGGGGGG!!!" and with that final "nothingggggg" echoing in the dotytron's message box, i slammed the phone down and started throwing things into boxes.

the whole "i've done everything and you've done nothing" little chestnut is something i pull out on occasion. is it true? pretty much. i did do all of the packing, essentially boxing up our entire kitchen while the dotytron in the same amount of time, lovingly dusted off his computer monitor, wrapped up cables with all the care of the death rituals for a pharaoh entering his tomb, and otherwise fastidiously packed up his computer set up. i would say that it's a fair accusation about, 30% of the time. unfair in the sense that yes, i do do more, but it's only because i go into what the dotytron calls my "monster mode" of just doing more in general...so it's not fair of me to complain about not getting help strategically, when most of the time i'd take control of the stuff regardless - frequently TURNING DOWN help when offered.

ANYWAY, thanks to my brother, we got like, 6 carloads done (including a milk crate that held 8 bricks that i insisted on bringing and that nearly made my brother disown me) (for the record, the bricks are part of my patented raccoon green bin insinuation thwarting strategy). i was able to put the kitchen together reasonably well, the house was packed, and we were able to sleep.

the move, during? (i don't know what between the prologue and epilogue is called)
moving day dawns, with the previous day's rain vanquished it was awesome. we were in and out in under 2 hours. it helped that we a) were moving a 2 minute drive away (note: always move within a 2 km radius - it's so much easier!!!) and that our friends are amazing. i also went into monster mode and hauled our mattress to the street, from the basement, by myself. it was crazy and made me bleed but i felt like a true buckshot shorty after.

the saturday of the move, we too dr. rei out for dinner as hanbo was celebrating the impending end of his bachelor hood in niagara. we took her to lehore tikka house. me, the dotytron, and dr. rei - the infamous M-R-I team for the last time (now it's M-R-I-H). during that dinner, as i was recounting how i had wigged out on him the night before, the dotytron looks up from his meal, shakes his head in a forlorn fashion, and then says, "i can't believe how much of my life i'm going to spend in the shadow of your anger." LOL!!!!!!!! isn't that the best??? awwww, that guy is amazing.

i took all last week off and the dotytron had a tonne of time off serendipitously so we went to work and got our place pretty much set up. i'd say we're about 95% there in terms of details (painting doors, trim, the stairs, etc.) not counting biggies like overhauling and gutting the kitchen, roof, etc.

there are some people who don't mind when they still have boxes left over from the move, or just put extra stuff in the basement forever. WE ARE NOT THOSE PEOPLE. every moment that our lives aren't settled, labeled, catalogued is abject misery. it's nice being in. now that all the "stuff we have to do to make it livable" is done (cockroach treatment, new furnace, new electrical, new baseboards, new insulation, new ceiling, new painting) we can kind of do it at our own pace (the dotytron's pace: relaxed; mine: monster mode).

the move, epilogue
so we're staring down the barrel at being done. we've put up most of our stuff, our living room and bedroom are the MOST done, barring some cute prints on the walls. our closets were installed and the walls in the closets cleaned up by a new contractor. we organized our books by colour in the living room. not the rainbow technique that makes me barf when i see it design-land, but blocks of colour. it looks pretty cute!

our table lamps in the living room have been getting us mad daps. the colour scheme in that room is grey, purple, shots of lemon. the citron wall in the bedroom looks AMAZING with our new bedroom set in there. effing effing amazing. our new mattress has arrived and we're in memory foam bliss. our new couch has arrived and we're in terror-of-spilling paranoia.

all the drapes save the dotytron's (fabric on backorder) have been painstakingly made by me. the cats are out of solitary and have the run of the place. the kitchen has been made habitable. the basement is as good as it's going to get. all we're missing is our dining room table and chairs and otherwise, we're living in a haus, kids. the haus that love and (thousands upon thousands of dollars and sweat equity) built.

still to come:
- wrangling with the old contractor
- wrangling with the old owner
- the wedding of my bfffffffffff

...to be resumed at a later date.

fin.